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Show Classic Black 1992 "I'll come with you," Karen is saying, "and you'll get it over with all at once." I can no longer walk far. "My steps have well nigh slipped," as the psalmist said. Standing in line at any checkout is traumatic and painful and I have a shameful history of abandoning half-filled grocery carts in quiet aisles, realizing with a sudden terror that I would not be able to complete the journey through the store, through the checkout and down the ever-expanding distance to the car. I sit on benches at the mall, patiently and anxiously waiting in fronts of stores for my young children, hand in hand, to complete their business within, without me. I count the number of steps required of a task and realize that I no longer have enough within me to complete my day upright. I can no longer walk far at all. I have tried for too many years to hide it, she is saying. I have worked too hard by myself, she is adding. There is no shame. "You will be free," she is saying as if this day was a truth, loading my new wheelchair into the back seat of her car. It is lightweight, black. Classic black, like a shiny antique car. We are going to the mall. I do not know why my heart is pounding at the thought, my mouth dry. |